The lay leading the lay

One of the ironies in the Catholic blogosphere is the way in which Catholic laymen turn to other Catholic laymen for spiritual guidance and theological advice. It’s especially ironic when one convert to Catholicism turns to another Catholic convert for counsel.

They converted to Rome, so they tell us, because Evangelicalism doesn’t have all the answers, and you can’t even be sure of the answers it does give you. So you need to have a Magisterium to give you all the answers to your questions—answers which are be sure are the right answers.

So why don’t they go to their priest when they have an ethical or doctrinal question? Why, instead, do they consult a man with no formal, Catholic theological training whatsoever? Why have lay Catholic epologists become their de facto priesthood?

How, in practice, does this differ from Two Seed in the Spirit Baptists—who had no professional clergymen? We might as well be back on the sawdust trail or camp meetin’, where anyone can hang out a shingle—since God both calls and “qualifies” the preacher-man.